Life is not fair.
Let us take, for example, the case of 64-year-old Pacifico Guevarra of Tarlac City, more popularly known as “Dillinger ng Siyete Pares,” whose life story inspired a movie of the same title many years ago. (It was starred by Raymart Santiago.)
Dirt poor but already ambitious at age 14, Guevarra studied hard. Thus, from Grades One to Five, he was at the top of the class. In Grade Six, he was due to graduate as class valedictorian. But his bad luck began.
One morning, a classmate, whose identity he never came to learn, wrote on the blackboard: “Malaking p— mo, Madam, matakaw ng saluyot.” Reading it, his teacher’s blood pressure rose. And as the “cleaner” the day before, he was accused of perpetrating the prank—and was severely punished for it.
His teacher was beating him black and blue with a bamboo stick when, unable to take the blows anymore, he pulled out a nail cutter from his short pants and threatened her with it.
It was a costly mistake, he would realize many decades later. (The mistake would set off a chain of troublesome events that would culminate in his being sentenced by the court to four counts of life imprisonment.)
His teacher filed a complaint before the school principal. As a result, his academic ranking slid to third place. He lost what should have been a scholarship in high school had he graduated valedictorian. And without the scholarship he also lost what should have been a very bright future.
He packed up and walked all the way from Tarlac to Angeles City in Pampanga. There he slept on sidewalks and worked as a shoe-shine boy. He also met a United States Air Force captain from the nearby Clark Air Base who offered him a job as a “yardboy” inside the base.
At Clark, Fate remained against him. Two yard boys stole a typewriter from an office inside the base, and he was once again accused of something he didn’t do. He was brought inside a Philippine Constabulary detachment and, as he remembered it, tortured into signing a confession owning up to the crime.
He was jailed in Angeles City, from where he tried to escape but failed. He was moved to the Pampanga Provincial Jail, from where he tried to make another dash for freedom. Again he failed. (To foil any third attempt by him to break prison, he was chained on both feet and placed in a solitary confinement.)
A few years later, he was transferred to the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa. After a month, he was shipped to the dreaded Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Occidental Mindoro, where he witnessed the savagery of certain privileged prisoners (called “trustee policemen”) upon their fellow prisoners.
One day, a “trustee policeman” attacked him. Thinking he’d rather die fighting, he whipped out a bolo tucked in his waist and stabbed the abusive prisoner dead.
He was placed in solitary confinement for about seven months, and then was brought back to Muntinlupa, where he received a “hero’s welcome” from fellow inmates. From then on he would figure in numerous prison riots, out of which he would earn not only the moniker “Dillinger” (after an Indiana lad who became the FBI’s Public Enemy No. 1 in the 1930s) but also three more sentences of life imprisonment.
In 1971, Fate dealt him a good hand when, as a result of reforms being introduced at Muntinlupa, he was allowed to join various religious activities like the Cursillo, the Charismatic Movement and the Life in the Spirit Seminar.
He was also allowed in 1985 to take a college entrance exam through a Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) program despite the lack of a high school diploma. He passed the exam and took up Entrepreneurship.
In 1990, he was released by the Board of Pardons and Parole. He was free after 26 years of incarceration!
The next year, he received his college diploma from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) and went on to study Law. (He couldn’t land a job; employers were afraid to hire him because of who he had been.)
In 1995, then President Fidel V. Ramos granted him absolute pardon. At about the same time, “Dillinger” also earned his Bachelor of Law degree from the Manila Law College.
He went back to Tarlac and wrote for local and national newspapers. In 1996, he petitioned the Supreme Court to allow him to take the Bar Exam. It was denied.
He would try to petition the Supreme Court many more times for the next 10 years. All attempts would be for naught.
Today, he has a wife and three daughters to provide for. He doesn’t have a steady source of income. He still clings to his hope that one of these days the Supreme Court will give him the opportunity to become a lawyer.
I believe he should be given a crack at his dream of becoming a lawyer. Having received absolute pardon by the government, there is no longer any legal impediment to his being allowed to take the Bar except the collective whim of the members of the Court of Last Resort. It is a discretionary thing, no more and no less.
If allowed, he might make it or he might not. We do not know. But whatever the result, at least we would be giving him one reason to tell himself and the world that life, after all, is fair.
Let us take, for example, the case of 64-year-old Pacifico Guevarra of Tarlac City, more popularly known as “Dillinger ng Siyete Pares,” whose life story inspired a movie of the same title many years ago. (It was starred by Raymart Santiago.)
Dirt poor but already ambitious at age 14, Guevarra studied hard. Thus, from Grades One to Five, he was at the top of the class. In Grade Six, he was due to graduate as class valedictorian. But his bad luck began.
One morning, a classmate, whose identity he never came to learn, wrote on the blackboard: “Malaking p— mo, Madam, matakaw ng saluyot.” Reading it, his teacher’s blood pressure rose. And as the “cleaner” the day before, he was accused of perpetrating the prank—and was severely punished for it.
His teacher was beating him black and blue with a bamboo stick when, unable to take the blows anymore, he pulled out a nail cutter from his short pants and threatened her with it.
It was a costly mistake, he would realize many decades later. (The mistake would set off a chain of troublesome events that would culminate in his being sentenced by the court to four counts of life imprisonment.)
His teacher filed a complaint before the school principal. As a result, his academic ranking slid to third place. He lost what should have been a scholarship in high school had he graduated valedictorian. And without the scholarship he also lost what should have been a very bright future.
He packed up and walked all the way from Tarlac to Angeles City in Pampanga. There he slept on sidewalks and worked as a shoe-shine boy. He also met a United States Air Force captain from the nearby Clark Air Base who offered him a job as a “yardboy” inside the base.
At Clark, Fate remained against him. Two yard boys stole a typewriter from an office inside the base, and he was once again accused of something he didn’t do. He was brought inside a Philippine Constabulary detachment and, as he remembered it, tortured into signing a confession owning up to the crime.
He was jailed in Angeles City, from where he tried to escape but failed. He was moved to the Pampanga Provincial Jail, from where he tried to make another dash for freedom. Again he failed. (To foil any third attempt by him to break prison, he was chained on both feet and placed in a solitary confinement.)
A few years later, he was transferred to the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa. After a month, he was shipped to the dreaded Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Occidental Mindoro, where he witnessed the savagery of certain privileged prisoners (called “trustee policemen”) upon their fellow prisoners.
One day, a “trustee policeman” attacked him. Thinking he’d rather die fighting, he whipped out a bolo tucked in his waist and stabbed the abusive prisoner dead.
He was placed in solitary confinement for about seven months, and then was brought back to Muntinlupa, where he received a “hero’s welcome” from fellow inmates. From then on he would figure in numerous prison riots, out of which he would earn not only the moniker “Dillinger” (after an Indiana lad who became the FBI’s Public Enemy No. 1 in the 1930s) but also three more sentences of life imprisonment.
In 1971, Fate dealt him a good hand when, as a result of reforms being introduced at Muntinlupa, he was allowed to join various religious activities like the Cursillo, the Charismatic Movement and the Life in the Spirit Seminar.
He was also allowed in 1985 to take a college entrance exam through a Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) program despite the lack of a high school diploma. He passed the exam and took up Entrepreneurship.
In 1990, he was released by the Board of Pardons and Parole. He was free after 26 years of incarceration!
The next year, he received his college diploma from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) and went on to study Law. (He couldn’t land a job; employers were afraid to hire him because of who he had been.)
In 1995, then President Fidel V. Ramos granted him absolute pardon. At about the same time, “Dillinger” also earned his Bachelor of Law degree from the Manila Law College.
He went back to Tarlac and wrote for local and national newspapers. In 1996, he petitioned the Supreme Court to allow him to take the Bar Exam. It was denied.
He would try to petition the Supreme Court many more times for the next 10 years. All attempts would be for naught.
Today, he has a wife and three daughters to provide for. He doesn’t have a steady source of income. He still clings to his hope that one of these days the Supreme Court will give him the opportunity to become a lawyer.
I believe he should be given a crack at his dream of becoming a lawyer. Having received absolute pardon by the government, there is no longer any legal impediment to his being allowed to take the Bar except the collective whim of the members of the Court of Last Resort. It is a discretionary thing, no more and no less.
If allowed, he might make it or he might not. We do not know. But whatever the result, at least we would be giving him one reason to tell himself and the world that life, after all, is fair.
